Slipping
by Littera
Summary: All is well that ends well, but since Amida Khan found out she is really Darth Revan, her happy ending has been slipping away from her. Kotor, LSF Revan Revan/Carth.
1. Revan

Disclaimer: I did make Amida Khan, but of course the producers made Revan... ;) Found this angsty little piece lying around. Enjoy, or something like that...

Slipping

Revan

As I returned to the Ebon Hawk with the medal dangling from my chest, life felt unnatural. Of course, there had been the great feast afterwards, but I had escaped it to think. Mere weeks ago I had been asked to save the galaxy and now suddenly it was done and in doing so my own life was destroyed. Perhaps the Jedi Council had known that my true identity would be revealed, but still I could see the questions in their eyes. They were not afraid of me, they were too much Jedi for that, but they knew that my powers were greater than theirs and they wondered what I was to do now.

I also wondered.

I had so many bloody questions. After all, the past I knew was nothing more than the fantasies of the Council. My real identity was deleted. At least everybody thought so. But I knew better. Because every night since the revelation of my being Revan, fuzzy memories had began to rise in my battered mind. I could not explain it in another way than that my mind somehow had resisted the wiping and had saved some things deep, deep down. No one called me anything but Revan, anymore. Canderous used my name as a respectful title and speaking to him always reminded me of how many people I had killed, and probably ordered other people to kill. Mission's voice lost it cheerful tone when she said that name, as if she could remember, even if I could not, the collective fears of the galaxy that I had put fear into. Carth was the only one to say it without emotion; as if Revan was a person he had no opinion about or relation to.

Jolee was the only one who could say it without hurting me. To him it was nothing more than a name, a name of a person whose actions he had accepted with his steady practicality, as with everything else. Nevertheless, it was a name that haunted me nowadays, more than it ever had done when Revan was only a shadow that I hunted, without knowing that it was I. Had it not been so sad, it might almost have been fascinating, the way a name could so totally change a life.

The memories came back when I slept or in painful flashes when I was awake. Parts of my childhood had come back to me, foggy and without much detail, as if the Revan from whom those memories had been removed, did not remember them very well either. Unlike Amida Khan, whose childhood I could remember in great detail. In many ways, Amida was a more real person to me than Revan, even if the truth was the total opposite. And nobody called me Amida anymore.

Perhaps nothing great could be saved without great sacrifices. The galaxy was safe from two powerful dark jedi; one of them was dead, and the other had been brainwashed. Perhaps I was more lucky than Malak. Perhaps I wasn't.

Some of the most uncomfortable memories concerned him. The things I had done to him. Darth Revan had not been a good master, or a very compassionate one. It was his fault, my dead former apprentice, that I had fled the big feast held in my honour at our return. I had been shaking the hand of some governor or another and it had come over me. One of the flashbacks of the painful kind. Perhaps I even broke his hand – I don't know. His eyes, which were flashing over my face and body, in evident appreciation of my deeds, and probably my looks, had triggered a memory of another man with similar eyes, doing the same thing.

Malak.

I had fled, for the first time in many battles and many years.

The stories of Darth Revan, always spoke of her courage. Her genius at leading troupes and commanding soldiers. Before she was feared for it, before she had turned, she had been admired for it. She always stayed and fought. Amida had been the same, relentlessly chasing the Star Forge, without much questioning her mission to do so. Amida had been a straightforward and honest girl. Perhaps the jedi council preferred her like that.

The link between me and Bastila had been severed. I did not know how or why or by who or what, but in this dark moment I was glad of it. If she wanted to trace me, to comfort or to preach, she would have to trace me with the Force, and I was stronger than her. Any of the others would find it easier than her, having actual skills in tracking. But none of my former crew wanted to know what was happening in my head anymore. They feared what they might find there, what it or I might do to them. There was a big difference between travelling with a former smuggler called Amida Khan and a former dark lord called Revan.

I wonder if Revan ever had a last name. Perhaps she did, but it was lost during years of bloody battles and layers of black cloth. Perhaps her name was different altogether. But after all, everybody has a last name.

Only a few weeks ago, I had entertained high hopes of becoming Amida Onasi. It was not very likely that Revan would have the honour of receiving an offer of marriage from captain Onasi, however, so these hopes should die, just as so many others had. What kind of hopes had Revan had? She must have been a young and talented padawan, to rise so quickly and brilliantly.

I guess there were many things I could discover simply by talking to the jedi, the council, the librarian; simply anyone who had known her. But I didn't want to admit that someone else knew me better than I did myself. I didn't even want to admit that I was someone else.

The view was splendid. The town was lit by a million of small candles and lights, and they shimmered when the warm breeze blew. Nobody would look for me here. It was impossible, since I had made sure my trail ended many miles on the other side of town.

The city stared back at me, something accusatory in its glance, even if the lights looked friendly and welcoming. The wind ruffled my hair and made the braids move slightly against my back. In the false memories that I had instead of a life, Amida had always had hair cropped unusually short. I had begun growing it even before someone had showed me a picture of the woman I had been; a woman in a dark menacing cloak, but with a long dangling braid. On her it had only made her more threatening. It made me look like a small errant child. Perhaps that was the only proof of the hybrid of two different persons that I had become. Perhaps I was the only one who thought of me as a hybrid at all.

In the back of my senses something began tickling me then; something beginning to draw nearer to my mind. By then I recognized full well the sensation of what was happening, and when darkness and living dreams took over, I almost embraced it. At least I didn't have to think.

A small girl with dimples and dark braids run through a green meadow. Her mother is chasing her, telling her to come inside and eat her porridge this minute.

A young man offers me a red flower. He reverently put it behind my left ear and then kisses me.

A jedi trainer is teaching me about the art of fighting and not fighting. He is still going on about how most situations can be solved without violence, when I take out my light sabre and cut him down.

My ship is going down. The shields are not holding, all my men are dead. Malak is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps I ordered him away or perhaps he has fled when my power is waning. Republican soldiers and grim faced jedi draw closer. I'm on a killing spree, making sure that I take as many of them with me when I die. But they do not kill me. My last thought is surprise and astonishment, as a young girl steps forward. Then everything turn black.

Voices. Voices I recognize and voices that are new to me. Bastila is there, but her normally controlled voice is harsh and it seems she is crying. A droid is nearby; his electronic beeps are easily recognisable. Garth is also there, but I know that because I can feel his presence, not because he is talking. His brain is a swirl of emotions and confusion and I draw back because it's painful. Jolee is also there and his voice is as calm as ever. I can't here what he is saying, but the rhythm of his voice is soothing.

It's not a voice, however, that brings me back to complete consciousness. It's the sound of heavy shod feet shuffling on the floor. I don't have to open my eyes or even reach out with my senses to realise the meaning of the presence of those heavy boots. Again, republican soldiers have come for me.

But as I open my eyes after all, I'm surprised. I'm not on the Millennium Falcon. This is a room of a hospital or some or other institution.

Carth is sitting by my side. His eyes are on my face, but he does not meet my eyes. As he notices that I have awoken, he rises and moves away. He's standing by the window now; his back straight as if he were still a soldier and this is an inspection.

"Bastila," he says in a motionless voice. "She's awake now."

A sudden flurry of movements and Bastila is by my side in his stead. Her face is flushed but there is anger in her eyes, not sorrow.

"What happened to me?" I ask her, but she does not answer. For a second she only stares at me, searching my eyes as if the riddle of the universe could be found there. Then she slaps me. Hard.

"Perhaps the bandages might tell you that? Or perhaps one of the crying padawans in the jedi temple? We all know what happened to you now. You made that sure."

Her harsh words make my head throb. The rest of my body is also hurting, I realise.

"Did I fall?" I wonder, dimly remembering sitting on a roof; no a tower. It was a balmy night, but the only window in the room let through sunlight, not moon or candlelight.

"Yes you did. It's a miracle not all the bones in your body is broken." Jolee provided. His old, wise eyes peered over Bastila's shoulder. "But not before you had channelled to every one in the town with the smallest ability to connect with the force."

I close my eyes. I can't do anything else. I don't remember the fall, or what happened before, but I have other memories now. Revan's memories, which for some unknown and unexplainable reason have come back to me, even if they were said to be destroyed.

"What did I channel?" I ask, but I don't recognise my voice. It's too detached, to void of emotion or even life.

"Your feelings," Bastila said hoarsely. "Tiny scraps of memories."

"It seems that the jedi council did not erase your past as effectively as they sought to." Jolee said dryly. He seemed on the verge of chuckling.

"You should have told us!" Bastila almost screamed. Hard to imagine that she had been so famous for her self-control. "You should have told us that the memories were returning. We could have helped you!"

She had angered me enough. I tried to sit up, mindless of the soldiers who shuffle their feet again and keep their eyes on my hands. "I should have told you and you would have done what?" I told her. "Announced the news that the dark lord of the Sith was regaining her memories? That Darth Revan was regaining her memories even though the jedi council had erased them? Tell me, Bastila, what you would have done?"

Her eyes are dark, and even if there is no bond between us, I can feel her hurt and anger. Because they are mine. Shady mirrors of the anger and hurt I felt when I fell from that tower, even if I can't remember it.

She goes away after that. She stares hard at me another second and then exits. She probably would have liked to be able to smash the door. Jolee hurries after her, but I don't know if it is to talk to her or make sure that Carth is alone with me. With me and two republican soldiers that is.

He is standing, tall and clad in his dusty armour, in front of the window. Had he been a bulkier man perhaps he had blocked the light wholly, but he is lean and muscled and it steals past him to colour the cover of my bed.

I turn my eye to the soldiers.

"If I really wanted to get out of here, two little boys like you wouldn't be able to stop me," I tell them confidentially. "I remember now how many like you it took to bring me down… Believe you me, when I say that two of you aren't sufficient."

One of them blush, battle hardened and rough as he is. The other doesn't acknowledge that he has heard me. Carth does, though. He turns around and walks over to the bed, standing looming over me, much like a male version of Bastila. Handsome and hurting.

Then he suddenly turns to the guards.

"You can join your friends outside," he says in a bland voice.

They shuffle their feet again, but make a salute and follows orders. Maybe that he hasn't led soldiers for long, but captain Onasai has not forgot how to order people around.

He watches them as they leave, and I watch his profile. His chin is set determinedly, but I have never learnt exactly of what that is a sign of. Then he turns to me again and his face is as bland as his voice. A horrible thought strikes me.

"You are not force receptive, are you Carth? Like your son."

He shakes his head shortly. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing for the moment. If the feelings I channelled consisted of what I think they did, a whole bunch of jedi knew exactly how I feel about him, even if he doesn't.

"I have no idea what you channelled to those jedis, Revan. But I have seen the consequences." His voice turns grim, and I do know that that is a bad sign. "Some of the small kids, the younglings, are inconsolable. Bastila says that contact with your anger and pain might seriously harm their minds for the rest of their lives. They just won't stop crying. Bastila couldn't for a long time either. She feels responsible. If you want to die, you don't have to throw yourself from a roof. You can just ask Bastila and she would gladly execute you."

His words are needles of pain that stabs me and makes wounds that won't stop bleeding. I have never known him to be so cruel before. Not even when the crew found out that I had been Revan. That was, on the other hand, when they still believed I had changed.

"The jedi council has been in session for two days, since the moment you fell. No one knows what they are saying, but there are lots of rumours. One padawan killed himself yesterday, leaving a message that he would rather be one with the force than remember what you showed him, forever."

"Has Bastila told you what I felt?" I interrupt him, perversely more interested in what he thinks of me, than all the sorrow I have caused.

"A little," he says. "She doesn't want to talk about it much. She says you have remembered all your memories from before. That the feelings which are causing so much chaos are confusion and anger and pain because of those memories."

For some reason, Bastila had not mentioned to him exactly what was causing the confusion. She could have done it to protect me, but more likely to protect Carth. Who was I to undo her work.

"She is right," I said. Nothing more nothing less. "I have remembered, and I might as well be dead."  
He made a brusque movement at this. I wonder if it was because I confirmed the memories, or because I wished myself dead.

"But I didn't jump of that tower. I can't remember, but I think I fell. You should know that."

His eyes turned to mine again, and in his eyes confusion and emotion was almost indistinguishable. "Why should I know?" he asked hoarsely. "Why?"

He got me there. Got me good actually.

When I had woken up, wounded and weak with him at my bedside, so many months ago, I had heard his voice for the first time. A process had begun then, of him slowly opening up, telling the horrible war stories and the tragedy of his family. I had thought that process finished when he said he loved me. Only proves how silly I am. He was slipping away from me again; he probably had already. I couldn't say it, not after what my past had revealed to me. I closed my eyes for a moment, and in the red darkness pictures of another life floated.

Malak gave me a flower. Malak followed me. Malak abandoned me. And now I wish I hadn't spared his life, so that I could kill him in the most gruesome way fashionable for assisting in making me what I had become.

I think she is coming back. Revan. Amida never wished anyone a painful death, especially not since the jedi trained her.

Anger leads to the dark side. At least I knew where I was going, in that case. It's not that I hadn't seen it before.

When I open my eyes again, Carth is looking at me. Something is softer in his eyes, like those first days, when he only saw a wounded stranger that needed his help. He sees a stranger when he looks at me. The confusion and anger has melted away into worry.

It hurts more than anything. I can't speak; I can't say anything, for I know that my voice will betray Amida's love, when he only sees Revan.

I turn my back to him and leave. The guards eye me with growing insecurity, but I'm gone before they can decide what to do.

I am in the jedi temple, which makes sense but isn't the place where I want to be. The corridors are empty, probably because there are lessons. Or because they have evacuated the place because Darth Revan is in the house. I hear footsteps coming my way, many footsteps and talking voices. Quickly I dart into an empty room. Whoever they are I don't want to meet them. Through the crack in the door, I can see the Jedi Council walk past. They are talking about me, what should be done with me. If I was safe. They are too immersed in this obvious problem to notice me. When they have passed I make for the garden.

Its green hedges and bushes are beautiful, the flowers are blooming in disciplined lines and the fountains sprinkle with water. The ordered environment hurt my eyes; ordered and calm when my inside is a well of chaos and disorder. But there is a wall to climb and I do so, landing on the other side and blending with the people on the street.

The pain is too deep, it will not go away. It lies deep inside me, like a poisonous snake, growing by the minute. The darkness is there; I can feel it. Was it like this when Revan turned for the first time? Now that I remember her, are we turning again? I have her memories, but I still don't know what made her turn. What made her embrace chaos and pain instead of the light? I have only her memories, but they are pictures mostly without sound, without explanations.

It has begun raining, clouds have covered the sky. I have lost track of time, of days, or hours. The pain is consuming me, and it matters not where I am, or what I'm doing, because the chaos is still there.

The jedi are searching for me, I can feel them out there. The jedis and the soldiers together, because of my escape everyone is convinced that I am Darth Revan. They do not understand. I am still Amida, but Revan is driving me mad. Not because she is there, but because she isn't. I only have her soundless memories, scraps of her life, but she is gone. It makes me wonder if she is really gone, if I am only a shell with a false personality and true memories; or perhaps Amida never really existed, perhaps Revan has only bided her time and I am her once again.

My thoughts are in a loop that always returns to the same knots, knots that are impossible to undo. I can feel my mind going, piece by piece. Some of Amida's memories have faded. Perhaps she was never really there; perhaps Revan was never really gone. Perhaps she only waited, and now she is back and everything is going back to how it was.

I have Amida's memories of the suffering Revan caused. The council probably wanted to make sure of that. Amida has seen terrible things, terrible battles and deeds, but now both her memories of the war and Revan's are in my head. Revan enjoyed the war; she thrived at the pain and fear she caused. Two such different personalities can't exist in one head.

I can feel my mind going.


	2. Carth

Carth

She was gone for so long. She walked out on me that day, without ever telling me what I wanted to hear. Perhaps it wouldn't have changed anything, but I would never had let her walk away from me if she had said it. The days past, and I was left with my pain and anger. And my love. This last sensation, which was causing the other feelings. When I first met Amida, she had begun to change me. Slowly, she had drained me of hate and my grief, until I was a person once again. She had saved my life; she had helped save the life of my son. I owed her more than I could ever repay; but I was unable to return the favour.

That day she walked away, I had seen hate and grief in her eyes, pain and confusion had radiated from her like the rays from a sun. Perhaps it was not as obvious for me, because I was not jedi, but I loved her so damn much that I could see it in her face. That was two months, sixteen days and half a day ago. No one had seen her since, and the search parties were getting anxious. Because she had ran away from them, they were unsure of whom she really was, and they wanted her back in the temple so they could have her under control. The thought repelled me, for Amida had loved her freedom so dearly. But perhaps they were right. At least I had thought so for the first week, but soon my fears were for her, not for what she might do.

I stayed out of it, though. I reported to the office, got a new assignment, a new ship. The other men laughed at my "fling with death" as they called it. Somehow everyone knew what had happened between me and Amida. I never laughed with them.

My new duty was a ship that was doing routine patrolling around a distant moon. Nothing fancy, nothing to interest or divert me. I got too much time to think. On the ship it was well enough, I could find something to do, someone to order to do something. Some nights I took the pilot's chair, sometimes I helped them tinker in engineering. It earned for me in that time a reputation for being a helpful captain, always ready to lend a hand. The men saw no longer than that.

It was the first shore leave after a month that had driven me back to drinking. I had never drunk to kill pain since Morgana's death, and it made me realize two things. The hangovers didn't really kill the pain, and my love for Amida would not die; it even rivalled the passion I had once had for Morgana.

Another month, I was like a malfunctioning droid. I did my duties, but my thoughts were constantly concerned about her whereabouts. At the next shore leave I realised that I would always love her, Revan or Amida, as long as there remained something in her to remind me of the girl I loved.

It drove me to the bars again.

I was dead drunk when Jolee found me. He must have been looking for me, for otherwise there is no way how he could have recognized me in the gutter. I was unshaved, torn dirty and I smelled like a horde of Banthas.

I didn't notice him, until he grabbed me. You know his way of looking like a frail old man? It's a deceiving appearance, for the man is made of steel. He got me up and dragged me over to a fountain near by. He almost drowned me, but at least by then, the thought had penetrated my thick head, that he wanted something. He would never had gone through the trouble of finding me else.

So I tried to ask him. He kept trying to drown me for a good while before he stopped pretending that he didn't hear me. Finally, he let go of me, and I sat down on the edge of the fountain, trying to focus on his blurry form.

"This has gone on for far too long," he said. His voice was as calm and dry as always, but there was a fair amount of exasperation in it, that I think I have never heard before.

"Revan has been gone for almost three months. Those fools in the temple believe that they can find her, but you and I know better."

She can't be found if she doesn't want to, I tried to tell him. The words came out a little jumbled and he frowned at me.

"Strange that you are saying that, being the only person that can find her."

His words had a better effect than the cold water.

"What?" I asked, straightening.

"Do you think she wanted to be found all those times? Do you think it was her plan to cry into your shoulder? You were affecting her as much as she was working on you."

His words stop time. Every noise of the bars, of the night, ceases. In the darkness her face appears before me like a vision. How did she look when I found her? On Tattoine for example. She had been surprised, I realised now. Jolees words were like keys to a million doors of new expressions she had. She hadn't sneaked into the cockpit so often only because she wanted me to talk.

Jolee was regarding me and his gaze reminded me of a disapproving teachers.

"Now, boy, we have much to do and little time. Make sure to keep away from drinking, or else we might have to search for ever."

It came to me then, that he was also searching for Revan.

He didn't lend an arm for support, so I tottered after him like a dizzy child. He didn't take me back to the temple, but to the Ebon Hawk, that stood on a landing pad outside town.

Then we began the search.

Three months, eighteen days and twenty-two hours. We are still looking. Three months, twenty-nine days and two hours. I am starting to think Jolee is mad and mistaken.

Three months, three weeks, six days and seventeen hours. We have finally found her.

I was searching outside of town, talking to the farmers and the children. It was a hot day, and the wind was filled with flowers and drying fruit. My hope was almost gone; it had slowly burned itself out during the search. I had tried so hard to find her. But his day I didn't even try. I was walking slowly, thinking back at the time on the Falcon, of our talks and our laughs.

And suddenly, there she is.

She is slumped against a wall, and people are passing her as if she is dirt or trash. Her eyes are closed and her hair's like a wild nest. My heart almost stopped, but when I saw the slow rising and falling of her chest, it resumed beating. She looks more or less the same, dirty and torn, but she is still my Amida.

Then she opens her eyes. She looks right at me, and the madness I see in them makes me mutter a curse. It's still her eyes, green, with flecks of every colour imaginable, but they are filled with chaos. As if the universe had been turned into a feeling and forced upon her.

I back of, slowly, as one does with wild animals not to scare them, and I call for Jolee.

While I'm waiting for him, Revan is watching me. It's impossible to decide if she has recognized me, or not.

Jolee comes. Even his calm and dryness is shaken by what he finds. He may be one of the last persons picked up, but he has a father's love and pride for her. He approaches her slowly, like I did, and at a safe distance he kneels down in the dust and looks at her. She looks back, warily, like a wild animal.

"Amida," he asks her slowly. For a moment her face contorts, emotions fight in her face.

"Jolee?" she asks, in a pleading voice, like a small child after a nightmare. Then her face contorts again, and she suddenly bangs her head fiercely in the wall.

"No," she mutters, "I'm Revan. Revan. Revan." There is blood on the wall before Jolee stops her. He simply does what I dare not to, rises, walks up to her, and grabs her. She doesn't resist. Her eyes meet mine again and I can suddenly see recognition in them.

"Carth?" She says, in Amidas voice. "Have you come to save me?" A storm rages past in her eyes, and then she laughs. It is a bitter laugh, full of madness. "You'd better stay away from me," she rages. "Look at what I did with Malak."

Jolee drags a hand over her eyes, and she falls against him. A jedi trick I had never seen before. Perhaps it was only for emergencies.

We took her back to the ship. Cleaned her, treated her wounds and scratches. She is sleeping now, the uneasy sleep of someone who has bad dreams. She wakes up from time to time, but always with that haunted look in her eyes. Chaos.

Madness.


End file.
